


Vulcan Prometheus: A Requiem for Logic

by grammarglamour



Category: Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Established Relationship, Experimental, Horror, M/M, first-person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-27
Updated: 2010-10-29
Packaged: 2017-10-12 22:04:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/129604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grammarglamour/pseuds/grammarglamour
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Jim dies on an away mission, Spock devises a plan to restore his bondmate's life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Fall

**Author's Note:**

> This is an experiment for me, as much as it was for Spock.
> 
> Stylistically speaking, I tried for a tone and style similar to that of Kirk/Spock fic from the early days of slash. I think it has an interesting, raw quality to it that a lot of the newer stuff doesn't have. I also think it uses first-person more often, so I wanted to experiment with that as well.
> 
> In terms of the content, I read _Frankenstein_ over the summer, and was completely enthralled. I wondered what a situation like that would look like for a character like Spock, and this is the resulting story.
> 
> The science here is shaky at best, for a couple of reasons. First and foremost, I'm no scientist. But more than that, _Frankenstein_ is much more a novel of consequences and philosophy than science, so I wanted to keep with that vague scientific vibe there.

Vulcan Prometheus: A Requiem for Logic

 **Part I: The Fall**

 **I**

He came to me in my dreams. As the crew of the Enterprise hurled through space at Warp Factor nine, bearing the body of Starfleet's most proficient captain, he came to me in my dreams. My father's people do not dream, but my mother is human, and humans are a race of dreamers. I inherited it from her, and in times of stress, my mind plays out scenes that it cannot fathom otherwise.

His death was one such scene. I saw it time and time again: his hands, reaching for me and me alone, as he fell down that sheer cliff face on a planet for which he had no knowledge or love. I stood in horror as his body broke on the rocks below.

It did not happen quite like that in reality. In reality, I had scrambled down the nearest path to him and I reached him just before he died. I put my fingers on his psi points and I extracted his soul – what my father's people call the _katra_. I stored it in my mind until we reached Earth. Until I was able to carry out my plan that went against all human laws of God and Vulcan laws of logic. I felt it inside my mind, writhing, breaking through. I could hear and feel him struggling in the swirling recesses of my mind. Try to hold on, t'hy'la, I told him. Try to hold on.

**

Dr. McCoy visited me in my quarters one night, soon after we alighted for Earth.

"How are you, Spock? How are you really? And don't go giving me any Vulcan stoicism. I need to know."

"I am as well as can be expected, doctor."

He hovered a moment in the doorway. I could see he was debating whether to leave me alone with my grief, or try to find some words of consolation, though we both knew there were none. He came fully into my room, then, and sat on the desk.

"I know that you and Jim . . . I know you were much more than captain and first officer. He never told me – plausible deniability and all that – but I knew it anyway. Believe it or not, I can be pretty intuitive when I put my mind to it. I think the two people who loved him most are right here," McCoy said.

"I think you are quite correct in that assessment, doctor," I said.

I felt weary, felt it deep in my bones and my mind. We had spent so many nights talking, planning for the future. Where we might go as old men when we had outlived our usefulness for Starfleet. The thought of those conversations, the look he got in his eyes when telling me of all the places on Earth that there were to visit, flooded my mind and dragged me down in their tow.

McCoy gazed down at the floor as though some secret were written there. Neither of us spoke, for what was there to say beyond that? He had lost a friend; I had lost a bondmate.

"I would offer you a drink," McCoy said, "but I know you won't take it."

"It would not do me any good, therefore its consumption would be—"

"Illogical," he finished.

"Quite."

"Well, I will just have to drink enough for both of us," he said, rising from the desk.

"To Jim," I said.

"Always."

 **II**

We arrived back on Earth, and I suffered through the memorial service at Starfleet Academy with the expected level of Vulcan decorum. My human side longed to throw myself onto the casket, to run my hands over the waxen face. He always seemed so cool to my touch, and I knew in death it would be an uncanny feeling. I remained standing in the front row, my eyes fixed ahead toward a banner in the background. If I looked on anything familiar, I would lose myself entirely.

My Vulcan hearing ensured that I heard what people said as I walked out of the service and into the corridor, to the shuttle that waited to spirit myself and his body to Riverside for the proper funeral.

 _Served under him for four years, and didn't even manage to frown._

 _Probably wants to take command of the Enterprise for himself._

 _He could at least act like he gives a damn._

I wanted to break their necks clean in half. I wanted to shake them and scream and rage. But I could not. I kept walking.

The service in Riverside was smaller. Less pomp and circumstance. It was just as he would have wanted. He hated dress uniforms and ceremonies. He was so austere in his own way.

We stood under the trees, in full green summer glory, their leaves lush with the humidity in the air. The hills were green, rolling as far as the eye could see, to the horizon. The landscape shimmered at the seam where the blue sky met the green earth. My body felt oppressed and heavy under the weight of the summer air. I was raised in the arid dry heat of Vulcan, and this moisture did not suit me. I endured it because I knew he had endured the heat of Vulcan on my behalf.

After the service, his mother came up to me.

"He spoke so highly of you. I wish I had gotten to meet you under better circumstances," she said, pressing my hand between her own.

"Thank you, Ma'am," I said.

His father came up and shook my hand with a violence that might have toppled another human. "Thank you for coming. I worked with your father on some treaty negotiations a while back. He's a good man."

"Thank you," I managed to say. I looked in his eyes and saw, in that way that humans have, that his grief was apparent there as clearly as if he had said it.

**

When I petitioned the High Command for leave, they looked at me as though I were an imposter standing before them. I remained calm, my face immobile, conveying no sense of insanity or irrationality. They, of course, granted my request. I was free to begin carrying out my abominable plan. Even as I thought of it, I hated it, but I went through the motions like an automaton.

I had procured a shuttle for my personal use, and under the cover of darkness two nights after the funeral, I went to his grave, still freshly turned and smelling of summer. With the strength and stamina that only a Vulcan could fathom, I dug through the earth and dragged his coffin from its depths. I put it in the shuttle and sealed it in a preservation chamber. I shoveled the dirt back in, left the grave as I had found it, and alighted for Germany.

My hands shook as I manned the console, dirt packed under my fingernails, the cuffs of my tunic dislodging soil as I trembled. I could feel his _katra_ pressing against my skull. I sensed his displeasure. He knew what I was going to do, but he could not understand it.

 _Spock, don't do this. Please, it's not too late to stop this insanity._

"It was too late from the moment I found you there," I said out loud.

 **III**

Gray clouds hung over the farmhouse where I would do my terrible deed. The air was colder and thinner here than it was in Iowa. I would have preferred to do this on Vulcan, but I knew my fragile creature, once risen, would not be able to withstand the dry heat of my home planet.

I waited until nightfall to unload the precious cargo from the shuttle and store it in the basement that would become my laboratory. The room had been previously cleared out, and thus the only object in it was the sealed case that bore the body of my beloved. I stared at it for a long while, thinking that perhaps I really could stop this. But then I contemplated the next century of my life without Jim, and I could not bear it. I turned and went up the stairs, my determination renewed, ready to face the next day in obtaining the equipment I would need.

The house was a wonder of a construction, mid twenty-first century, one of the first truly energy efficient homes to be built. It was still sturdy and well-kept, the grounds around it manicured. More importantly, it was secluded. The nearest neighbor was a kilometer away.

I pulled the sheets off of the furniture, turned on lights. The house still ran on electricity, a rare method. I liked the warm glow they cast in circles of light. I settled into one of the overstuffed chairs, lost myself in contemplation.

I could, I reasoned, have merely cloned Jim. The technology was there, though it was a fifty-five percent chance at best that I would succeed. Cloning anything more complex than a farm animal was not advisable, but it was possible. Even if I had attempted such a gamble, it would not have been Jim. It would be like choosing a replica over the original _Mona Lisa_. The paint may be the same, the brush strokes may be identical, her smile may be perfectly rendered, but it would not be the same work that had been touched by the master's hand. So it was with Jim.

Under normal circumstances, I would prevent myself from even considering this based solely on ethical grounds. But I had surpassed that line of thought a long while ago. Somewhere in the primordial swirl of my mind, even as I had held his cooling body in my arms on that day, I knew what I would do. I knew that this was where my path led, and that I was beyond all reason.

**

I dreamed again that first night. Or, perhaps it wasn't a dream, but his _katra_ coming to me once again. I saw him separated from me through glass and water and fog, his hair swirling about his head like a halo, his eyes wide. He shook his head but did not speak. I stood there, mute and in anguish, with my hand to the glass.

I awoke feeling sickened and shaking. I knew that I would need to complete my work quickly, lest the madness brought on by housing his _katra_ should overtake me.

I worked for nearly three days straight without eating or sleeping. I ordered supplies to be delivered to the house, and if any parties involved questioned the strange amalgamation of equipment, they were discreet enough to keep their curiosity to themselves.

Outside, summer began its descent. I saw it from the tiny rectangular window in the cellar, rain one moment and blue sky the next. Leaves began to fall and pile up against the glass, paper-thin and wet, in shades of gold, red, and brown. Even as Earth began to settle down for its months of repose, it was still beautiful. It tugged at my core, this planet so unlike my own. I longed to be out among the changing life, but I could not, overtaken as I was by my work.

When the time came, I removed him from the preservation chamber. I stood there looking into the vessel for a moment. His skin, in life so rich and warm, was stark white, his lips turned bluish purple. He did not look as though he was merely sleeping. The stillness was too deep. I could not detect the faint thrum of his heart, as I could have when he lived, hearing the blood rush through his veins.

I touched his closed eyelids, his cold skin, and said, "I will restore you."

I was flooded immediately with a wave of nausea and a pain in my head like a sharp blow. I did not hear a sound or his voice, but rather a feeling – stronger now than the others had been – that communicated to me, _Please, don't. What has happened is final._ I fell to the ground with my hands to my head. I felt a wet drip from my nose and saw when I swiped it with my thumb that it was smeared with green.

I could not listen to this feeling, these pleas from the stowaway in my head. I was too mad with grief to comprehend the terrible implications of my actions. I knew it was wrong, but I could not perceive how wrong. I proceeded.

 **IV**

I had been there twenty-six days when Dr. McCoy found me. I toiled in the cellar and did not hear the chime, so engrossed was I by the work at hand.

I made progress in those weeks, my goal within sight, and this drove me further as I continued to work for days on end without sleep or food. Perhaps my reason was beginning to advance through the fog, and that propelled me forward, for once it caught up with me, I would be forced to stop. Whatever reason, it caused me to miss the chime when the doctor rang. It was not until I heard the sound of boots on the floor above that I was roused.

I rushed up the stairs and locked the basement door just as I heard him call for me.

"A moment, please," I said, having to employ all manner of my Vulcan training to appear composed. I washed my hands and locked the door again behind me as I came into the kitchen, where Dr. McCoy stood.

He nodded toward me, his face evincing his worry. "Everything all right?"

"Yes, of course. How did you find me?"

"I called in a few favors and tracked your shuttle. You landed here a few weeks ago, and haven't left since. I came to check up on you," he said.

"I certainly appreciate your concern, Doctor, but I assure you, I do not need you to supervise me."

"That's why I'm here, Spock," he said. "Forgive me if I don't trust your judgment."

My mind wandered to the body that lay in repose in the basement. I had left him in a vulnerable state, and if I let him fester down there for too long, my work would be set back days, if not a full week.

"Of course," I said. "Please, I have things to clean up in the basement. If you will excuse me for a moment—"

"You're working?"

"It is nothing of import. Please, have a seat, and I will return momentarily."

"Well, I'll go down and help you," he said, moving toward the door.

I stepped in front of it, my hands splayed out as though that would protect it. Protect _him_. "No. That will not be necessary."

McCoy leveled his gaze at me, and I met his eyes, unwavering.

"All right," he said.

My heart pounding in my side, I retreated to the basement to properly care for Jim. I stowed him away in the preservation chamber once more and cleaned up the basement as best as I could.

"Would you like some tea?" I asked McCoy as I emerged from the basement.

"Sure, Spock," he said, eyeing me all the while.

He sat at the kitchen table; I busied myself making tea.

My head thrummed as Jim's _katra_ wailed and raged inside my skull. He called out for Dr. McCoy, and I did all I could to shut those doors to him. When he was restored, I would explain, make him understand, but right now I could not.

"You know," McCoy said, then paused. I did not fill the silence. Finally, he began again. "You know, Spock, it's all right that you feel . . . whatever it is that you feel. I give you a lot of grief about it, but you are still half-human, and even if that weren't so, it would still be okay. I know a lot of good people who work with the psychology department at the Academy—"

"Thank you, Doctor," I said, unable to hear any more of this. I understood his implication, and it was perhaps the most heartfelt thing I had heard from the man who had been my foil and cautious friend over the years, but it was beyond the pale to listen to him say those things to me. I handed him his tea.

"It was worth a try," he said. "The Enterprise is shipping out again in a few days. She still needs a captain."

"I cannot."

"Are you sure? I don't want some wet-behind-the-ears go-getter who thinks he knows every damn thing because he wrote his dissertation on Klingons," McCoy said.

"Better to stick with the devil you know, is it?"

"Why Spock! Is that a joke? I'll be sure to note this in my journal," McCoy said, smiling a true smile.

"Why are you so worried about me?"

"I just want you to know that I'm here for you. And maybe the best thing right now is to get back on the horse," he said.

"Doctor, I could not possibly fathom what 'the best thing' to do right now would be, but I do know that going on the ship and assuming command is not it," I said.

"I had to try."

"I know you did. And how are you? Are you utilizing the services of your colleagues in the psychology department?" I tried to keep the extra bite out of my voice, but I could not.

"As a matter of fact, I am," he said. "But even so, when the Enterprise ships out, I'll be there – whoever may be in the captain's chair. And, it would seem, the first officer's."

"I wish you the best of luck," I said.

"Thank you, Spock." He looked into his mug, and drank the last bit of tea. "I'm going to head out. I have a few days left before the Enterprise ships out, and I'd like to see my daughter. She's in France with her mother. You know how to reach me if you change your mind."

I rose, and we shook hands.

"I thank you for coming to see me," I said.

"You're welcome. We ship out at 0800 hours, Pacific time, on Monday morning. Just so you know. Even if you showed up at 7:59, I'm sure Komack would still let you on," he said.

"I will take that under advisement."

**

Another two days passed with no interruptions. I began to get headaches regularly, but I worked through the pain. I was so close to completing the circuits and processes that would bring Jim back. I could not stop.

I lay on the sofa one morning in a brief moment of rest, when a series of furtive, quick knocks resounded from the door. I remained still, but on alert, obscured from view by the heavy curtains at the window.

"Spock, I know you're in there!" A female voice. Christine Chapel.

I did not answer.

"Look, McCoy's a damn fool. I'm not here to convince you to get back on the Enterprise. In fact, without you or Captain Kirk, I won't even be going back. But I want to help you. Please, let me in." Her strong voice carried through the door, and even as its familiar timber soothed me, I felt a sense of panic.

I rose, and went to the door, hesitating just one moment. Then I opened the door.

She stood there, her hair pulled back into a simple bun rather than the style she normally wore. She stood before me in plain civilian clothes. I had never seen her out of uniform.

"You look terrible," she said, tilting her head to the side, and brushing past me into the house.

She removed her jacket and tossed it over the back of a chair. She surveyed the house with a critical eye, the same look I had seen her give recalcitrant patients who she thought might be untruthful.

"You've been here a month, and this living room barely looks lived in." She craned her neck and looked through the open kitchen door. "And judging by the single, solitary plate and single pan on the stove in there, you haven't been eating much. Which, if you'll forgive my foray into logic, leads me to think you've either been holed up in a bedroom or perhaps down in the cellar doing something that I probably should not ask about," she said.

I stared at her, my mouth opening and closing, words unable to form in my throat.

"Oh yes," she said. She waggled a finger and went to the kitchen. "I notice things like this. You have to get up pretty early in the morning to be Dr. McCoy's right-hand woman."

"Yes, I suppose one does," I said.

She opened cupboards and the refrigeration unit, and pulled a small data PADD out of her pocket. The stylus flew and tapped across the screen as she made notes and lists.

"First things first," she said. "I am going to the store for you. I'm cooking you dinner, and you're eating it, and then we're going to discuss whatever it is you've been doing up here."

The mention of my work jarred me into action. "Absolutely not. Nurse Chapel, please. I am in no need of a hot meal or your assistance in anything. I am merely taking some time off after a stressful away mission in which our crew lost its—"

"Hogwash."

"Excuse me?"

"Spock," she said, her voice softening, "You're hurting. We all are. We all loved him. But whatever it is that you are doing, you need—"

I could no longer endure her meddling, her coddling. What did she know? She may have been able to deduce my daily routines from the state of the house, but she could not know the pain and turmoil that had led me here. She may have been able to observe and to guess, but she could not truly know.

My senses left me entirely for a moment, and I pushed her against the wall, my body pressing to hers.

"You must go now, Nurse," I said. "Do not tell anyone where I am, do not send for anyone. Leave me alone. You know nothing about my grief or about what I need or do not need."

I felt the hard muzzle of a phaser against my side, right over my heart.

"Step away from me, Mr. Spock. I want to help you, and if that entails phasing you into next week, then so be it."

I stepped away. She held the phaser steady for a moment, then lowered it to her side.

"I apologize," I said. "I have not been quite myself since . . ."

"Yes, of course," she said. Her voice softened. "I know that you and the captain had something special."

"I suppose it was the worst-kept secret in Starfleet."

She smiled. "Maybe not the worst, but I'd say it cracks the top five. I know what it's like to lose someone you love. My fiancé was lost for years, and when we found him, look at what happened."

"I am sorry, I did not think—"

"I know."

She took my arm and I allowed myself to be guided to the sofa. We sat in silence for a few moments. I tried to center myself, to listen to the wind outside, the leaves blowing around. A storm was coming over the horizon; I felt the change in pressure. Looking out the window, I saw dark clouds already cut through with lightning in the distance.

"You will have to stay the night at least," I said. "It won't be safe to fly out in this."

She nodded. "Thank you. The shuttle I have is . . . well. It is not the finest piece of technology I have ever seen, we'll put it that way. It got me here and it will get me back, but I doubt it would survive any inclement weather."

I showed her to the guest bedroom before slipping back to the basement, shutting and barricading the door behind me.

I opened the preservation chamber and looked down at Jim's face. My work had begun to restore him already, the deathly pallor just beginning to lift, the wounds on his body healing. It would not be long before he was again risen and beautiful. I touched the side of his face and could feel a tiny glimmer of the bond we once shared.

Exhaustion finally overcame me. I began to put away my instruments and supplies, to seal up the preservation chamber when a sound stopped me. I looked up, rushed to the window. Outside I saw a tempest raging, the sort of storm I had rarely seen on Earth. I should have heard it sooner, but grief and distraction left my senses hindered.

Dead leaves, brown and decayed, swirled through the darkness. I could see the clouds were heavy and gray, churning above. Lightning forked the sky, and a thunderclap shook the house.

The window before me filled with white light, the house crackling, the lights inside flickering. An enormous clap of thunder, as insistent as the voice of a god, erupted overhead, and the clouds opened up, rain cascading down in sheets. The moment was over, and I was left in near-darkness, the only lights coming from the machines, which ran on dilithium crystals, rather than the old electric wiring of the house.

A sharp pain sliced through my head like a phaser blast, rendering me insensate for a brief moment. I regained my wits, found myself on the ground, my back against the work table. I pulled myself up, stood braced against a counter. My eyes adjusted, my ears still ringing from the thunder and my collapse. I turned to survey the basement and saw, in the purple and red glow of the machines, Jim sitting up in the coffin.


	2. The Descent

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The consequences of Spock's actions become clear as Jim rises again.

**Part II: The Descent**

 **I**

He turned, his movements slow and jerking, and reached a hand out to me. I remained immobile, pressed against the work table, in horror at what had happened. He was not ready. The regeneration was not complete.

"Spock," he called out, head slowly turning in my direction. His voice was rough, the muscles of his throat having atrophied.

I regained my wits enough to go to him, to grasp his hand.

"I am here," I said. His hand was still cold. The blood wasn't circulating properly. I held his cold hand to my lips and kissed his fingertips.

"Where was I? Where are we now? I felt . . . as though I were split in two, in two places at once. I was with you, but I was far away."

A branch had blown against the window and it scraped the glass. I looked out to see it reaching like a hand begging for entry. I looked back to Jim.

"That is a long story, Jim. For now, you must rest. You were injured. But you will be fine now. Everything will be fine." I stroked his hair, his face. For all the terribleness of it, I was in awe. I brought him back to me.

Exhaustion hit me again, crashing over me like a wave.

"Come, we must go rest now," I said.

I helped him out of the coffin and led him up the stairs, through the house, to the second floor. His feet were unable to cooperate with his legs, and his steps were heavy. I thought of how he was before, how lithe and spry, moving with the grace and athleticism of a man fifteen years his junior.

We finally reached the bedroom I had claimed. The lights were still not on in the house, and the only illumination came from occasional flashes of lightning. I helped him fumble in the dark. He had been buried in his Starfleet uniform, and I unzipped the gold tunic, the cropped pants, the boots. I undressed him as one would a child.

"I don't understand," he said. "I just woke up, but I'm tired again."

"You were injured very badly, Jim," I said. "It will require a few more days of rest for you to feel better."

"Will you stay with me?"

"Of course," I said, stroking his face. "Always."

We climbed into bed, and he lay on his back, face turned to the ceiling. I adopted the same position, staring into the darkness. He reached his hand out, fumbled for my own. I drifted off into my first deep sleep in weeks.

 **II:**

I began to stir from sleep as the gray light shone feebly through the window. I turned my head, sensing him next to me, but froze when I saw him in the morning light.

His hair stood out too golden over the sickly, beige pallor of his face. His lips, once ruddy and healthy, had taken on a bruised purple hue. Thin lines feathered out from his lips like vines, broken blood vessels and coagulated blood. But the most horrifying aspect was his eyes. Their warmth had been leeched out, replaced by a livid, bilious yellow, filmed over by cataracts. I shuddered at the sight of him, my bondmate who I had risked everything to resurrect.

He lay on his side, those hideous yellow eyes boring into me, unblinking.

"It's starting to come back to me, Spock," he whispered. "I shouldn't be here."

"It is true."

He reached his hand to my face. I saw that the nail beds were the same indigo as his lips. I started, recoiled, but then I found myself leaning into his touch. I deserved this touch, this clammy skin against my face, these hands so clumsy and divorced from their owner. I reached up and closed my own hand against his.

"Why, Spock? What about logic, reason?"

"Don't you see? I could not bear it. Logic had nothing to do with it. It was pure selfishness."

"You know I don't want this – would never want this. I can't go on this way, Spock."

I closed my eyes and nodded against the pillow.

After all my hard work and my grief, I knew what would have to be done. Even if it had not happened by accident, even if I had had more time to finish the proper procedures, I could no longer delude myself with thinking that I could give him this second life.

"Please, hold on a few days," I said. "Can you?"

"I'll try, for you, but I don't know how long I can do this. I feel . . . I feel like roasting meat, like my flesh is slipping from my bones."

"Forgive me."

"I'm trying."

That sentiment resonated so strongly with me that I felt a physical sensation of pain. The idea that he did not forgive me out of hand, that he would have to think through it, settled into my stomach and I felt ill.

"Of course," I said, my voice barely able to make it out of my throat.

I heard footsteps in the hall, then, and the door handle turned. I did not have time to rise from the bed and block it, and all too soon, Christine stood in the doorway, in her dressing gown, eyes wide with shock. She put her hand over her mouth to muffle a scream.

"I was just looking for the bathroom," she said, her voice quiet.

I sat up in bed, frozen, unable to move except to look back and forth between Jim and Christine. Her eyes trained on him, she looked upon him with horror.

"What the hell is this?" she asked.

"Christine, I—"

"No," she said. "Don't try to explain. I don't want to hear any possible explanation for this."

She turned to go, and I sprang to action, out of the bed, going after her. I caught her by the waist as she stood at the top of the stairs. She struggled against me, clawing at my bare arms and attempting to bring her elbows back. She struggled with all she had, but it was not – could never be – enough. I held her fast.

"Christine, please," I said. "Please, let us discuss this."

She yelled, "No!" and managed to get a jab with her elbow that landed on my side.

I stumbled back, cried out, but still maintained my hold on her. I heard a slow shuffling step coming from the bedroom, and Jim was there, in the struggle. I felt his hands on me. I could not discern whether he was trying to aid me in holding her, or if he was trying to pull us apart, but in my moment of confusion, Christine slipped from my grasp. She pulled away from the tangle of arms and straightened, adjusting her dressing gown, trying to regain her composure.

And then, she was overbalancing, her arms like windmills at her sides, her face shocked. She tumbled back down the stairs as Jim and I stood at the top, unable to move. When she landed, the sound of her neck snapping reverberated through the house as loud as the thunder from the night before.

 **III:**

I moved her into the basement and laid her out on the table that had once been the area that I used to work on Jim's body. We stood over her, mute. I stared at her face, at the blue settling in around her lips, the limp twist of her neck.

A soft wind blew outside. I could see the sun shining, that particular type of sunshine that follows a thunderstorm. It seemed cleaner, the rolling hills in the distance more green, the mountains in hyper-real hues of purple and gray.

"What are we going to do?" he asked.

"We – rather, I – will have to dispose of the body. Incineration will likely be the most effective method," I said.

"You can't!"

"I can and I will and I must," I said. "If you do not wish to witness this, wait for me upstairs."

He looked at me, his horrible eyes studying my face. I knew what he was thinking, why he scrutinized me so. I was no longer his bondmate, no longer the Vulcan I once was. He could see the subtle changes that I could not see. He was one who had straddled two worlds; he had distance that allowed for him to see things others could not.

"I will wait," he said, and exited the basement with his slow, loping gait.

I burned Christine's body under a pile of fallen branches. The fire burned bright, hot, and acrid. I tied a cloth around my nose and mouth, but the smell seeped through. Perhaps it was psychosomatic, perhaps I did actually smell it, an oily scent that hung in the air. It burned for hours, and I sat out there in silence as the sun moved across the cold blue sky and the column of smoke rose.

When her body and the charred remains of the trees were no longer distinguishable from one another, I broke up the lot with a shovel and scattered the ashes, tamped them down in the soft dirt, until all that was left was flecks on the landscape.

I moved her shuttle into the shed and covered it with a tarp. I would dismantle it later, sell the pieces in the surrounding towns.

When these grisly tasks were done, I returned to the house, returned to Jim. He sat at the kitchen table in a finger of sunshine shining through the window. It was bright yellow, and it restored his beauty for a brief moment. His skin glowed once more with health. Then he turned to me and was cast once again in shadow.

"Spock, please—" He stopped, unable to finish. I understood.

"I cannot, yet," I said, kneeling before him, caressing his cold face with my hand.

 **III:**

The next days passed in such a mixture of joy and sadness that I have never known. A bit of the old Jim had returned, and even though this creation was mostly a mere shadow, moments flickered by. A smile, a joke. We did not do things as we used to. We did not play chess or involve ourselves in discussions. We dared not make love, for it seemed too much of a transgression, but we slept in the same bed, holding one another close.

It was the little differences in him that I found most disturbing. He did not smell the same. His natural scent was gone. It was something that a human would not perceive, but I could. He was quiet. His reflexes were not the same. I knew that he could tell these changes within himself. I saw his pain as he sat in the living room – such a misnomer in this circumstance – for hours, motionless.

We walked together in the evenings, careful to avoid any villagers. I bundled him up in scarves and jackets, hid his face as best as I could. The clothes were remnants that I had found in the house, boxed away. They were old and ill-fitting, but in my foolish grief, I had not brought enough clothes.

We made ungainly progress through the forest near the house, silent except to comment on the flora.

Just as Jim was a shadow of the man he had been in life, so was our relationship. Where once we shared a life and love, there was nothing. He resented me, as well he should have. That was one human emotion that was logical.

And yet, how could I kill him? How could I see him taken a second time? But there was no other alternative. I saw it then in a way that I could not have seen it before.

"Are you ready?" I asked one night.

"You know the answer to that, Spock," he said.

"Yes, I suppose I do. Tomorrow."

"Tomorrow."

"I . . . I am sorry, Jim."

"I know. I would do the same for you if I had the know-how, we both know that. That doesn't make it right."

"Illogical, but true."

"That's an understatement," he said. A silence fell that was charged with unasked, unanswered questions. "What will you do . . . after?" he asked, finally.

"I do not know," I said. I lay there in the darkness and looked up at the ceiling.

"Whatever you do," he said, "make sure it's the right thing, Spock."

I held him close, unable to say that I was so far past anything right, I did not even know what that could be.

 **IV:**

I knew what I would have to do in order to dispatch him once more. It was a simple chemical compound that I had readily available. It was part of the process for restoration, and a simple adjustment of the quantities would result in death.

He lay on the table in front of me, eyes shut and his lashes sweeping his ghostly face. I stroked his cheek one last time, kissed his lips.

"Are you sure you would not prefer to remain a while longer?"

"Spock, please, just do it. Let me go."

"Yes, of course," I said.

My vision clouded. My throat tightened. It took me a moment to realize what was happening, for I had not experienced this in years, not since I was under the influence of an alien virus. I was crying.

I loaded the hypospray and injected him, then reached for his hand. I held onto him as he slipped away from me again. It was relatively peaceful this time. No blood, just a shudder. His hand slackened in mine and he was gone.

I remained standing there for an undetermined period of time. He was gone, and I felt as though a part of me had been ripped out. My mind buzzed with blank white noise.

I was no longer Spock. My physical body may have appeared the same, but my mind was no longer my own. I had shared it with Jim, had been bonded to him, and now he was no more. He was gone from me. My grief overcame me. It was un-Vulcan, embarrassing, unbearable, but still all too true.

For the first time in decades, I wished I were able to speak to my father. He had never offered solace to me in my youth, when I felt things unbecoming of a Vulcan – which is to say, the fact that I had even felt things at all. But he knew one thing that other Vulcans did not know, one thing that bound he and I together: What it was to love a human. He knew that they had more effect on us than we had on them. He would understand what it was to love the chaos of the human mind, and to let that chaos in. Yet, I could not. For, even though he would understand that, he would never understand my actions. No human or Vulcan or sane being ever could.

I was alone. Profoundly alone. More alone even than I had been in my youth. My bondmate was gone, my parents were out of reach, and even someone such as McCoy would not have understood my actions.

I am leaving this account for whoever should find it. I will not leave any indication of my whereabouts. Please do not misunderstand this as an evasion of justice. It is just as true of Vulcans as it is of humans that the prisons we build in our own minds are more punishing than any physical imprisonment. I will be far away from here by the time my terrible deeds are discovered.


End file.
